Bras N Things censured by ad watchdog for Playboy lingerie in-store video
An in-store video ad for Bras N Things Playboy lingerie has been banned by the ad watchdog for not treating the issue of sex, sexuality and nudity with sensitivity.
The video – similar to the video shown in this post – featured a woman wearing different styles of Playboy-branded lingerie and the video camera moving over the model’s body to highlight the details on the lingerie. The complained about video had no audio.
A complaint to the Ads Standard Board suggested the ad was “amateur porn”.
“They were not merely modelling the underwear, they were moving suggestively, gyrating and looking lasciviously at the camera – like a very amateur porn movie. It was a demeaning and embarrassing display,” the complaint read.
Another complain suggested the video was “vulgar” and “unsuitable for the young” with the video on being displayed on a “large screen so seeing it was unavoidable”.
Bras N Things defended the video, saying the store had “received very little feedback from customers”; however, in an effector to be “respectful” to shopping centres, the videos were replaced with stills.
“The video advertisement is playing on digital screens in our store window in limited stores,” the retailer told the ASB.
“There is no sound with the video, it is imagery only.”
While the board noted that Bras N Things is allowed to advertise the products available to purchase, it was the board’s view that the “manner in which the lingerie is model by the woman is sexualised”.
It was the board’s view that “the silent, moving image draws the eye of passers-by” and considered that “the model is stroking her hair and her moving her body suggestively and that this amounts to a sexualised impact”.
The board considered that as there is no branding of the shop or the particular line of lingerie in the video, “there is a more sexualised impact of the material as the focus is on the woman’s body rather than on what she is wearing”.
The board upheld the complaints.
In response to the ruling, Bras N Things said the campaign had concluded and all related video footage had been removed from stores on July 31.
“The video footage will not be used again,” the store said.
It is also worth noting that the ASB has no jurisdiction nor capacity to enforce in an in store environment.
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I’m looking forward to Wicked Campers embedding this on the side of their van.
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So this would be porn for women given that they are the customers in a Bras N Things store?
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The complaint contained one reference to the effect that it was like a very amateur porn movie; now that has to be discernment, especially to refine it to “Very amateur” obviously a deep appreciation of the various levels of porn production there.
Another has it “vulgar, and unsuitable for the young” I suggest that brassieres are, and lingerie in general is, unsuitable for the young, and if the reference is to the very young, then sex, sexuality and the products advertised, are all unsuitable.
It seems that many people have become addicted to protesting about the bleeding obvious, I remember going shopping with my Mother in the 1950s, and looking, with some curiosity, and a slightly invigorating and even excited pleasure, at the women’s stockings pulled tightly onto clear plastic model legs that stood side by side on the counters, and at the girdled and brassiered models in painted plaster with glass eyes and real hair wigs. It was all just as inappropriate to me at that age around (9), but I have never regretted seeing them, or the slightly guilty thrill that they gave me.
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I am discussed you are advertising almost porn on the TV.
Get real where is the company morals.
Put the underwear on coat hangers.
No one should have to put up with viewing almost naked women on the TV. Get the ads off our TV
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It’s an advertisement for lingerie with the model wearing lingerie, I honestly don’t see the issue. Playboy lingerie is sexy, if you’re buying it you probably want to feel sexy as the lady in the ad appears to be feeling.
She’s not making oscine gestures or anything, there’s no sex, there’s not even another person.
Women can still be sexy sexual beings without it being an excuse to objectify them.
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